Rotary Club moves to conserve trees
Rotary Club of Limbe says it will recruit the youth to guard around Blantyre Water Board’s (BWB) Mudi Catchment Area to protect the newly planted trees.
The club’s president Daniel Dunga said this in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of a tree-planting exercise at Mudi Catchment Area in Blantyre.
He said they decided to recruit the youth to protect the new trees to scale up survival rate.
Dunga said: “We have been planting trees for a number of years but we have discovered that the survival rate is not satisfactory.
“So, we will engage communities to identify young people we can employ to look after the trees.”
On his part, BWB director of technical services Mavuto Chiipanthenga said survival rate of trees planted in the 2020/21 tree-planting season was 75 percent.
He said the tree-planting exercises at the Mudi Dam Catchment area have helped to reduce water treatment costs, but could not disclose how much the board is now saving.
“The cost of treating water was high, but with regeneration of vegetation and the tree-planting exercise, the treatment cost has gone a bit down,” said Chiipanthenga.
Blantyre City Central legislator Chipiliro Mpinganjira (Democratic Progressive Party), who was the guest of honour, commended Rotary Club of Limbe for the initiative.
The club planted 2 500 trees and it is planning to plant 15 000 trees this season.
According to Dunga, 10 000 trees were sponsored by FDH Bank, 2 500 by General Alliance Insurance Limited while the other 2 500 trees were bought using the Rotarians’ own resources
